Monson, Springfield workers, businesses rebuild from tornadoes

Mark M. Murray/ The Republican06/24/11 Monson - Republican Photo by Mark M.Murray- Mike Czarnecki checks the stock at the Adams Hometown Market at 115 Main Street in Monson,the store has been closed since the June 1st tornado.

Joann M. Casey of Wales used to do the filing at the store. Kimberly Gula of Monson used to work in the deli.

But in a post-tornado Monson, Czarniecki is spending at least some of his working shifts raking up tornado debris, including shards of roofing slate, from the grounds of the Monson Senior Center

Case and Gula deliver books for Link to Libraries, all because Adams and its insurance carrier are paying full-time employees at the market to work at local nonprofits while the store is being rebuilt, said Michael J. O’Grady, district manager for the chain.

The store won’t re open until August, O’Grady said.

“We work because we need to,” Casey said. “ But this gives us the opportunity to help the community as well.”

Czarniecki, who lives in Monson, said he’d be on unemployment without the work at the senior center.

“All this work needs to be done,” he said.

Adams is just trying keep people working and reopen a destroyed business, O’Grady said. A problem countless local businesses are struggling with in the wake of the June 1 tornadoes.

“I would have rather lost my house than my business,” said William L. Feinberg, owner of Bel-Mar Insurance Agency Inc. which was forced out its South Main Street office. “I know I say that as someone who lost his place of business and whose home was undamaged. Maybe I would be thinking differently.”

But he said his responsibilities included not only moving to temporary quarters on Century Way in West Springfield but dealing with his many customers who had insurance claims to file.

“You have 2,000 customers to take care of,” he said. “At my house, it’s just my wife and myself.”

Plymouth Rock Assurance, the main insurer he deals with, has been a help offering him the use of its claims staff and offering to take calls to his agency at its call center.

“I had a lot on my mind,” Feinberg said. “Survival. I’ve been in business 50 years, 26 years at hat location.”

He has a staff of four, not counting himself.

Adams market’s O’Grady said the store, which is owned by Connecticut-based Bozzuto’s wholesale laid off 40 part-time workers but wanted to help full-time employees keep their benefits. The insurance company is helping with the cost, O’Grady said.

“We are offering people as much work as we can in our other stores,” he said. “But the nearest one is several hours away in Connecticut.”

Workers are also inventorying the products left in the store and preparing to move them out to make way for reconstruction. All the perishable items are already disposed of.

‘The volunteer organizations are just a great way for our employees to spend their eight-hour shift,” he said.

In Springfield, Carlos Gonzalez , president of the Massachusetts Latino Chamber of Commerce said his organization has worked with more than 30 tornado-damaged businesses. Most of them small mom-and-pop operations. Some businesses lost their locations. He’s working to put those business in touch with resources, like the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Gonzalez said he’s moved one business, a hair salon that was on South Main Street, to a new spot on Chestnut Street. More will follow.

“The great thing is that these business owners are just as enthusiastic now as they were the day they started,” Gonzalez said. “They are enthusiastic about getting back to the South End.”

They might even come back stronger than the were before, Gonzalez said.

“Some of them just started a business,” he said. “They didn’t have the right capital or a good business plan. Now they get to wipe the slate clean and learn from those mistakes.”

Feinberg, owner of Bel-Mar Insurance Agency Inc., said he wants to get re-established in Springfield but he might not be able to go back to South Main Street. He owned the space through a office condominium arrangement and it is going to be expensive to rebuild.

“The building is getting worse,” he said. “The roof is open and now we are getting water damage onto the lower floors.”

Building owners also have to rebuild to 2011 building codes.

“A 2011 building was not what was there to start,” he said.

That means replacing the old building could run $4 million to $5 million.